Press-ups for using phones at the table Pocket money 30 chores for a new pair of trainers Paragliding with Pa! because life is full of risks
As he joins The Mail on Sunday, Bear Grylls champions the joy of outdoor living and unveils his maverick manifesto for raising happy children ...
BEAR GRYLLS looks like a man who has everything: fame, fortune, friends including Barack Obama, a wife he loves and three young boys. But the world’s bestloved adventurer is keen to let his sons know that it wasn’t always like this.
‘I have started telling my boys that schools celebrate the sporty, the academic or the good-looking,’ he says.
‘I never was. And none of that is important in life. What is, is being resilient and kind along the way.’
As Bear prepares to join us as a new Life columnist, writing about his family and other adventures, it’s time to find out the truth about the home life of the former SAS soldier best known for climbing mountains, surviving in the wild with A-listers and being a rather handsome devil. Surely the tanned, lean, super-fit man in shades, T-shirt and jeans was a looker or a sporting star at school?
‘Maybe I had a cheeky grin, but no. I was dogged. I couldn’t get into any of the school teams so I started karate, aged 13.
‘A couple of old school friends have said, “The thing we respect most about you is not all this TV stuff, it’s those qualities you had on cold, wet Sunday nights going off to karate when all of us had given up and were taking the mickey out of you.”’
Bear persevered – and the wiry teenager became a fighting machine. ‘They were all fitter and stronger, and they would have been much better than me but none of them got their black belts because they all gave up.’
Bear was an SAS reservist and survival instructor, broke his back in a parachuting accident and climbed Everest just 18 months later – all before he was spotted making a motivational speech by a television producer. Initially he was too shy to want to appear on TV, but his wife Shara said he should have a go, not least because at the time, in 2005, they had no money.
Now the 43year-old has a global brand worth tens of millions, with bestselling books, survivalist shows such as The Island and Running Wild (on which he fed Obama a scrap of salmon that had already been chewed by a grizzly), and merchandise including action cameras and jungle knives. He’s also the Chief Scout and has his own adventure theme park opening at the NEC later this year.
That’s a hell of an act to follow if you’re the hero’s son and Bear has three: Jesse, 14, Marmaduke, 11, and Huckleberry, nine.
‘I’m not driving a message to my kids of, “You’ve got to climb Everest and be the most adventurous,”’ he insists when we meet on his houseboat on the Thames. ‘The message is simple: “Respect your mama. Be humble in your dealings with people, Go for your dreams, have courage and don’t give up.”’ And take risks, too, whatever age you are. ‘You can’t strip risk out of kids’ lives. I see it with friends who are saying, “Don’t go skateboarding the week before GCSEs because you might break your wrist.”
‘You can’t live like that. You empower kids if you teach them that life is full of risk, everywhere you look, but say, “You’re going to be the smartest, most-equipped-at-dealing-with-risk person you know.”’
And that was his attitude when he was criticised for leaving Jesse stranded on rocks near the island they own in North Wales in 2015, as part of a lifeboat training mission. Sea safety experts condemned him, but Bear says Jesse was wearing a lifejacket and the risks had been carefully assessed in advance.
‘I was paragliding last night with Huckleberry,’ he adds. ‘He loves it. But we do it safely. We used to fly tandem but I think, “If the two of us go down together, that would hurt Shara so much more.” So now I fly alongside him and I get one of the best guys in the country to fly Huckleberry.’
The boys have been exposed to risk ever since they were babies.
‘When we first had children here, my mother and Shara’s mother were saying, “You’ve got to move off the houseboat – they’ll fall in the river.” It’s a ripper of a tide. It’s dangerous water. For half the day it’s racing past us.
‘But I always said, “Tarzan grew up in the jungle but he figured out how to stay alive and manage risks.” ’
The boys are better for the experience, he insists. ‘They are all super-savvy around boats. They’ve got great balance. So we’ve done them a service.’
Wouldn’t he be saying something different if one of them had fallen overboard?
‘No, because you’re with them.
I WASN’T SPORTY OR CLEVER AT SCHOOL – BUT I WAS DOGGED
MY BOYS DRAG ME TO THE BEACH KICKING AND SCREAMING
They fall off when you take your eye off the ball.’
Bear admits he was often absent in those early years, leaving Shara to struggle on her own. ‘The first seven years I was away all the time, because I had no control over anything. Now we own all the TV shows, we plan when we do them and we film super-fast. The priorities for all the people in the office are really clear: “Number one, stay safe. Number two, time with family. Number three, what I’m doing has to be fun. Number four, it’s got to be empowering for other people. And number five, it’s got to earn well.” Don’t put the earning at the top just because the deal is great. If I’m away too much, then it’s not fun.’
Now this very wealthy family also has a swish London apartment, an estate in Wiltshire and that island near Anglesey. They also spend the winter months in the Alps, where Bear films many of his survival shows and two of his sons go to an international school.
Jesse is at boarding school in this country, despite Bear admitting in his autobiography that he loathed being a boarder. ‘Jesse didn’t start off as a boarder but after a year he said, “I really want to board, a lot of my friends are.” You’ve got to listen to your children.’
What does he think about teenagers being constantly glued to their mobile phones? ‘I’m not militant about phones but you’ve got to teach kids how to use them responsibly and respectfully. Phones are there to serve you rather than for you to serve them.’
That said, he’s not above playing the strict father. ‘I did this thing with friends of Jesse when they came round: if I caught them looking at their phones at supper, they’d have to do press-ups.’
Bear is a Christian, so are his home values based on faith? ‘The heart of my faith says I’m loved despite my failings and that we’re called on this Earth to try to shine light and love other people. I suppose those values are at the root of how we like to try to bring up our children.’
Does that mean going to church? ‘Not very often. I’m not very good with church. Sometimes you come across these wonderful churches, but for me church is something that’s often put me off faith. It’s been a life journey to realise that’s OK.’
That is a surprise, given that his face is all over the posters for the Alpha Course, designed to introduce people to Christianity – and ultimately get them into church.
‘Alpha is wonderful,’ he says. ‘It’s a way of helping people understand that faith is in here [the heart] and it’s a stumbling journey, but it’s certainly not about bricks and mortar.’
Is it hard bringing up kids without spoiling them if you’re rich? ‘We set the boundaries. Our eldest says, “I get the smallest amount of pocket money of all my friends.” But I want to teach him there’s value to money, so the boys have a star chart: if they want shoes that are £80, they need 30 chores to get there, or whatever it is.
‘I say, “Whatever you save, I’ll double.” There’s quite a lot of cheating that goes on, but it’s all part of the experience.’
As for family holidays, Bear offers his top tips, above, for making the best of the British outdoors. Surprisingly, the rest of the family have to work really hard to get him to the beach. ‘I actually don’t like sand,’ he laughs.
Hang on. This is the man who famously taught us how to survive in a sandstorm by sleeping inside the carcass of a dead camel, and who even made a show training with the French Foreign Legion.
‘On day one, they go, “Right, for the next six hours, we’re going to shovel sand from here to the other side of the barracks.” I said, “It’s a desert!” but they replied, ‘Don’t answer back!’ So I’m not great with sand. That’s why I love where we live in Wales. Straight off the rocks, dive into the sea. Epic. I have to get dragged to a sandy beach by my family.’
This all sounds very macho but what if one of his boys would rather stay in and read a book? ‘We totally have that, and that’s wonderful. In our house there is so little pressure to be outdoorsy. I happen to have two boys who live for the outdoors, but the other one loves his cooking and stuff like that. Lucky us!’
And it turns out that when he’s not up a mountain, the mighty Bear likes nothing better than to end the day with a cuddle. ‘We love being cosy as a family. Nothing nicer than all getting into bed together and reading books. It’s heaven.’
BEAR’S FAMILY LIFE COLUMN STARTS NEXT WEEK IN life